Is Facebook Dangerous?


In his recent blog, Bob Cringely rightly warns us not to expose ourselves too much on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and MySpace. I try not to say NEVER quite as loudly as Bob Cringely does. I am also not quite as paranoid. But I am VERY selective about which applications I install on Facebook (since all applications require access to the personal data on your Facebook profile and I don't want to clutter up my profile with applications I don't use). Some of the Facebook applications are actually fun and educational, e.g. Deadline, The New York Times Quiz, Who Has The Biggest Brain? (and all of the games in that series). If I suspect I might like an application I will install it and play around and then uninstall it if it doesn't measure up. How else do you find great new apps? I also regularly go through my applications and uninstall the junk I'm not using (I'm going to do that again right now). And one more thing - I don't have a lot of personal information (e.g. birthday, address, phone numbers) on Facebook in the first place; so the apps I install are welcome to it!

Comments

  1. Puneet Singh LambaTuesday, January 13, 2009 at 8:20:00 PM EST

    Here's a more complete list of Facebook apps I recommend (mostly in the "utility" or "fun and educational" categories).

    -Deadline
    -The New York Times Quiz
    -Music iLike
    -Feeds
    -Books (and related: DVDs, Gadgets, CDs)
    -Traveler IQ Challenge]
    -Twirl

    Also the excellently produced Playfish series of games.

    -Who Has the Biggest Brain?
    -Word Challenge
    -Bowling Buddies
    -Geo Challenge

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousThursday, October 15, 2009 at 10:42:00 AM EDT

    Don't like adding applications, but photos are fun

    ReplyDelete
  3. PreetSaturday, September 11, 2010 at 7:35:00 PM EDT

    Had problem with spyware and ended up reformatting my disc. Had to install all software on my machine again. It was AntivirusGT that had eaten up my machine. Click very carefully.

    ReplyDelete

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